el apache

“St. John the Divine is slipping sideways,” Amsterdam whispers to 111th and 112th Streets, who always seem to be listening.

“Yeah,” says 111th Street, “we know.”

“It's happening right in front of us,” 112th Street quips.

They were all very aware of what earth did. Earth allowed the mining and taking, the changing of this into that. But the labor of construction workers, of men in hard hats and orange vests had to be constant, had to be vigilant, because earth was an Indian giver; she always took it back.

“You can’t say that,” 111th spoke up, unsolicited.

“I can’t say what?” the author typed.

“That thing about Indian giving. It’s crude and perhaps racist. You need to find a more culturally-appropriate way of phrasing your thought above.”

“Actually, I’m making use of a widely understood idiom in order to quickly and efficiently get my thought across so that I can continue with the narrative,” the author answered.

111th was known for asserting himself where he didn’t belong. Like when he tried to cut right across Morningside Park in his campaign for “More Logical City Planning And Easier Driving From Here To There.” That was in 1846 and even then you could count on 111th to be longwinded when brevity would do just as well. This is how it was with 111th.

“Then I want out of this piece. I want no mention of me to occur,” 111th complained. “And I want you to stop describing my logical requests as complaints.”

It wasn’t as if one could invent a new place for St. John’s the Divine to exist. It lived, and, one might say, slipped sideways, at 1047 Amsterdam, between 111th and 112th Streets.

“By the way, that photo was taken from an interesting angle,” 112th asserted. “The building is not, nor was it ever 'slipping sideways'. It may appear to you to be slanting off to the side, but that’s the effect of the angle at which the photo was taken, not a result of Earth, or anything else doing any swallowing. You’re a photographer. You should know about this.

“Besides which, personification of buildings is a silly idea.”

Personification worked well enough for 111th and 112th. But to extend it to other works of concrete, steel or rock was too much\.